The very fact we find ourselves attempting sobriety suggests that our rational brain accepts alcohol is not good for us. I’m not saying that every person who puts down the bottle has an addiction or problem but when we strip back what alcohol is you do struggle to find an actual benefit of putting it into our bodies.
Certainly in the UK where I was born, raised and still live there is a social acceptance of drinking to excess and most people will turn a blind eye to a head down a toilet after ‘one too many’ but how many people would turn a blind eye to somebody over-eating to the point of vomiting?
On the other end of the spectrum we call drug takers ‘addicts’ and stereotype them as thieving, dirty lowest of low in society yet I know cocaine addicts who have six figure salary jobs and hold down a house and the fake facade of a clean life.
The reason I mention it is because I’ve been having a lot of conversations recently with friends about moderating. It must be something to do with it being January and the desire to be healthy and cut down on the stuff that was overindulged on over Christmas! When I respond by saying I don’t think many people can successfully moderate who haven’t previously been a responsible drinker you can see the cogs turning – they don’t disagree with me but at the same time they can’t bring themselves to say they would quit the booze all together. I’m in the minority in society by abstaining. It’s not a boast, it’s just reality!
Anyways, I don’t have a particular subject to cover today but I wanted to blog nonetheless so apologies if this ends up being nothing more than a Happy Daddy ramble. My posts of late have steered more down the Rational Recovery / AVRT route as I’ve been keen to share how the mechanics of this programme work and it’s great to see that many people have taken a look and are now investing in Jack Trimpey’s book – a piece of literature which has changed my life. That said, I don’t want my Blog to solely become a fan page for Jack!
My ‘recovery’ started back on the 17th February 2021 and as I’ve said many times before I didn’t have any long term plans for the Blog. I didn’t take my journal into hospital and we weren’t allowed chargers in our rooms because of the risk of self harm with the wires. It meant I needed to ration my phone battery so rather than trying to watch films via rubbish NHS WiFi and drain the juice I started writing down how I felt. It was easy to use the WordPress App via my phone and before I knew it Happy Daddy was born. I didn’t expect anybody to read it bar me (just like my paper journal back home) but it immediately got views and that in itself fed into the positive human reaction of feeling liked, important and part of something.
The Blog serves two purposes. It’s a great outlet for me to write but let’s be honest – if it was that alone I could have gone back to my private journal after leaving hospital. I continued to blog instead and once I was getting positive feedback and comments from those reading my posts I realised my blogging could help others. So here we are two years later, 179 posts published and over 15,000 blog views.
There have been times when I’ve questioned if blogging on a public forum is the right thing in the long term – especially when you consider the content that I’m covering. There is still stigma attached to addiction and mental health issues in the UK despite the massive inroads we’ve made in the last decade. Would being public affect future career aspirations? Would it bring unwanted attention to my family? Would it lead to increased anxiety and stress if the Blog grew in popularity and more people reached out (including trolls!)?
I love having my Happy Daddy platform but I think it’ll always be something I review periodically and then decide if it’s still bringing any value to my life. I’m still in the infancy of sobriety and recovery and this pathway I’m on could be my life for another 30-50 years.
Happy Daddy 